Saturday, November 30, 2013

Church officials in Germany have defended plans by the country’s
bishops’ conference to allow some divorced and remarried Catholics to
receive Communion, insisting they have the Pope’s endorsement.Robert
Eberle, spokesman for the Archdiocese of Freiburg: “We already have our
own guidelines, and the Pope has now clearly signaled that certain
things can be decided locally.

“We’re not the only archdiocese
seeking helpful solutions to this problem, and we’ve had positive
reactions from other dioceses in Germany and abroad, assuring us they
already practice what’s written in our guidelines.”

Mr Eberle’s
comments followed the disclosure by Bishop Gebhard Furst of
Rottenburg-Stuttgart on November 23 that the bishops’ would adopt
proposals on reinstating divorced and remarried parishioners as full
members of the Church during their plenary in March.

In an
interview with Catholic News Service, Mr Eberle said “many points” in
the Pope’s apostolic exhortation, Evangelii Gaudium (“The Joy of the
Gospel”) suggested the German Church was “moving in the right way” in
its attitude toward remarried Catholics.

Uwe Renz, spokesman in
the Diocese of Rottenburg-Stuttgart, also defended the bishops’ stance.
He said he believed the bishops were acting “in the spirit of the Pope’s
teaching.”

“Our own dialogue process has shown this is a major issue for both lay Catholics and priests,” Mr Renz said.

“Pope
Francis has called on bishops to exercise a wise and realistic pastoral
discernment on such problems, and our bishops want divorced and
remarried Catholics to be a full part of the church community, with full
rights.”

Archbishop Gerhard Ludwig Muller, prefect of the
Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, reaffirmed in
October Church teaching that prohibits divorced and remarried Catholics
from receiving Communion without an annulment.

Tomorrow is the first day of Advent which marks the beginning of the Catholic Church’s new year.

Archbishop Eamon said, “I am delighted to launch our new Advent
calendar which today, and each day up to Christmas Eve, will reveal
Advent information and prayer resources by clicking on a virtual
numerical door in our online calendar. For many years we have provided
online resources to assist with our Advent preparations, but this year
we offer the faithful our novel online calendar for this purpose.

“Why is the Advent calendar useful? Preparation does not happen at
once but over time. The season of Advent is a time of spiritual
preparation for the Lord’s coming at Christmas. Advent also prepares us
for the second coming of Christ at the end of time. As Christians, we
must always be prepared for the coming of the Lord as reflected in
today’s Gospel reading at Mass, ‘You must stand ready because the Son of
Man is coming at an hour you do no not expect’ [Mt 24:37-44]. Taken
together then, each day of Advent amounts to a period of time which
allows us to journey and reflect on 'the joy of the Gospel'.
Archbishop Eamon continued, “As we begin our Catholic new year today, I
invite everyone during the Advent season to visit and to enjoy the
information provided on our online calendar, which will provide details
on:

- Mass readings of the day;

- Pope
Francis’s new Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium (The Joy of the
Gospel), published on 26 November last, will be promoted using excerpts
from it;

- Advent videos: blessing of the crib in the
home, blessing of the advent wreath in the home, prayer when lighting
the lights on the Christmas tree, family table prayer;

- Advent music;

- information on saints during the Advent such as Saint Nicholas on 6 December;

- video and text reflections from Pope Francis and Irish bishops (The Creed, The Liturgy etc)

- prayers for the season: for families in need, for those
suffering neglect and violence, for Irish emigrants, for those in
prison, for those who are sick, for those in difficulty;

- Tweets from individuals, parishes, Irish Church agencies and from the Vatican;

- resources for Advent and Christmas from Veritas;

- Trócaire Global Gifts for 2013 information campaign;

- Crosscare’s Dublin Food Bank appeal;

- work of the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul; and

- Christmas messages from Irish bishops in preparation for the Nativity of our Lord.

Archbishop Eamon concluded, “As Advent is the season of preparation for
the coming of our Lord, I encourage the faithful, notwithstanding our
hectic schedule over the coming weeks, to make time to pray - alone and
with loved ones - and by so doing to draw nearer to Christ.”

The founder of Project Rachel says she is extremely pleased by the
U.S. bishops’ decision to create a full-time staff position to work with
the post-abortion healing ministry.

“To oversee the ministry and keep on top of things that need to be done,
you really need a full-time person,” Vicki Thorn told CNA Nov. 18. “I’m
just delighted that they’re going to have one.”

“This is an important ministry of the Church,” she said, “and it is really key to the evangelization of our times.”

Thorn founded Project Rachel in 1984 as a healing ministry for those who
have suffered the devastating consequences of abortion. The program is
present in the majority of Catholic dioceses in the United States.

By a vote of 225-9, the U.S. bishops at their recent fall assembly
approved the creation of a new full-time position to work with the
ministry.

The new staff person, who will be funded by the Knights of
Columbus, will serve as a resource for diocesan directors who offer
retreats, support groups, models and training resources for priests.

Project Rachel has always had a very “open” relationship with the
bishops, Thorn said, explaining that it is designed to be a diocesan
program, under the authority of a local bishop.

Post-abortion healing is vital, she said, pointing out that it was one
of the major elements in the first Pastoral Plan for Pro-Life Activities
issued by the bishops' conference in 1975.

“The bishops had called for education on the sanctity of all human life,
getting people involved in the legislative process, and pastoral care –
first for those facing a crisis pregnancy and secondly a call for a
ministry to help those who have had abortions,” she said.

Those who tend to be the strongest advocates for healing after abortion
are bishops and priests “who are confessors,” because they have seen so
much of the pain that comes with abortion, she added.

In addition to openly professing how harmful abortion is to men, women
and children, pro-lifers must also work to make healing possible for
those who have been wounded, Thorn stressed.

“Many women leave the Church or are away from the Church and have an
abortion, and don’t know they can come home,” she said. “And when they
do, there’s this incredible experience of God’s mercy.”

The Church must work to facilitate this healing, she explained, and Project Rachel helps to do that.

Thorn noted that Pope John Paul II accurately predicted the devastating
aftermath of abortion in his 1960 work, Love and Responsibility.

Pope Benedict XVI later took these ideas one step further, she said, by
admonishing the Church to fulfill its obligation to be a Good Samaritan
and to “go and find the wounded and bring them to the Church for care.”

Now, she reflected, Pope Francis’ image of the Church working in the field hospital “really applies to this ministry.”

“We’re taking care of the walking wounded and enabling them to come to a
new spiritual relationship with God to really encounter his mercy,” she
said.

ONE of Cardinal Keith O’Brien’s alleged victims yesterday voiced
concern the Vatican is not to put him on trial after his resignation.

Scotland’s
senior archbishop, Leo Cushley has revealed the Vatican believes
O’Brien, who was ordered to leave Scotland, has been punished enough.

The
man, who claims he left the priesthood after he was sexually targeted
by the cardinal as a trainee priest, is pursuing a civil case against
O’Brien and the Catholic Church.

The ex-seminarian, now in his
50s, broke a30-year long silence in March to allege he had been groped
and kissed by Cardinal O’Brien in the 80s, at the college where he was
studying.

He said the incident had not been a one-off, and his
lawyer Cameron Fyfe last night spoke of his client’s sense of “betrayal”
regarding the Vatican decision.

He said: “He will be bitterly
disappointed at this news. One of the most upsetting things about Keith
O’Brien’s behaviour was that throughout his church career, he railed
against homosexual behaviour while appearing to indulge in that very
same behaviour in his private life.”

The disgraced former Catholic
Church leader, 75, who admitted he made sexual advances towards young
priests, is still in exile abroad after he was ordered by Pope Francis
to pay penance in a monastery.

Archbishop Cushley said it was unlikely
O’Brien, formerly Britain’s most senior Roman Catholic, would return to
the Scotland.

He added: “Nothing is a lifetime sentence, but it is
a reasonable assumption that he will not be coming back in the near
future.”

He said: “My impression is Rome has finished with this.
They will look into it again after a certain period to see that things
are going the way they ought to be going.”

A new biography of Pope Francis, based on primary sources and
testimonies, is being praised in Argentina by people who know him as the
most complete and authoritative portrait of him in any language
to-date.

Hundreds of people crowded into one of the most beautiful
bookshops in the world, the Ateneo Grand Splendid in the heart of Buenos
Aires, on November 19, for the presentation of “Francisco: Vida y
Revolucion” (Francis: life and revolution), the new biography of Pope
Francis, written by Elisabetta Piqué, an Argentinean journalist who has
known him since 2001.

Her book is being hailed by many who knew
Bergoglio here as the most complete and authoritative portrait of him in
any language to-date.

“This book is based on solid research, and written from the
heart”, Father Mariano Fazio, former Rector of the Santa Croce (Opus
Dei) university in Rome, told the large audience that included the Papal
Nuncio to Argentina, Archbishop Emil Paul Tscherrig, who, the book
reveals, enjoyed a better relationship with Cardinal Bergoglio, than
did his predecessor.

Rich in testimonies from Jesuits and laity, including many poor
people whom he helped, the 332 page book written by the Rome
correspondent of La Nacion, one of Argentina’s main dailies, is being
published simultaneously in Spanish (by El Ateneo) and Italian (by
Lindau), and negotiations are under way for its release in other
languages too.

Fazio said it communicates well “key aspects of Bergoglio’s
spirituality” and “the humility of the man” who, in countless hitherto
unknown ways, helped the most needy in society and saved many lives
during the military dictatorship. He was one of a panel of 5 that
presented this page-turner book which offers many new insights into the
personality of the first Jesuit Pope, provides an accurate history of
his life as a Jesuit and bishop, and reveals hitherto unknown
information about the conclave that elected him, as well as reporting on
the first six months of his pontificate.

On the panel with Fazio were Rabbi Abraham Skorka, a close
friend of Bergoglio who expects to travel with him to the Holy Land in
2014, Professor Julio Barbaro, the renowned historian of Peronism, and
Father Gustavo Carrara, the ‘vicar’ appointed by Cardinal Bergoglio to
oversee the Church’s mission to the slum-dwellings of this metropolis of
almost 12 million people.

“This very fine book has enriched me
because even though I thought I knew Bergoglio and his spirituality, on
reading it, I discovered many new things hitherto unknown to me”, Rabbi
Skorka said. He praised the author for writing a highly readable book,
“rich with testimonies” of many people from different walks of life
who knew him, which shows clearly that he is “a man truly committed to
dialogue.”

“This is a biography marked by lucidity and passion”, Julio
Barbaro told the overflow audience on the second floor of this
magnificent former theatre and cinema. He highlighted the faith-centered
leadership given by Bergoglio during the turbulent and bloody period in
Argentina’s history immediately before and during the military
dictatorship, and recalled how he rejected both ideologies and
repression, and showed that “the faith is stronger than ideology”.

Barbaro, who was a friend of both Argentina’s former president - Nestor
Kirchner, and Bergoglio, said “Kirchner’s problem was not with Bergoglio
as such, it was with whatever he could not control”. He praised the
book for bringing out Bergoglio’s “striking spirituality” and his
‘revindication of faith over ideology”.

Father Gustavo Carrara warmly welcomed the new biography that
devotes a whole chapter to Bergoglio’s inspiring and courageous ministry
in the “villas miserias” or slum districts of this metropolis where
some 250,000 people live, 43 % of them under the age of 17. He recalled
Bergoglio as “a pilgrim bishop who walked among the people, especially
among the most needy and the last in society”, and called the city’s
believing communities, including those in the slums, to be “a missionary
Church”, and ‘go out to the existential peripheries”.

Bergoglio
highly valued ‘popular piety” and reminded everyone that frequently
“people who are poor in this world are rich in faith”, Carrara said.

He recalled the intense emotion and rejoicing in the villas di miserias
when he was elected Pope, and the powerful impact on them when Francis
appeared for the first time, dressed in white, on the central balcony
of St Peter’s and humbly asked people to pray for their new bishop.

Bergoglio always told his priests and people that “if you take the
Gospel seriously, your life will become more complicated”, Carrara said,
“And if we take Francis seriously, he will complicate our lives too!”

Responding to questions at the end of the book-presentation,
Elisabetta Piquè confirmed that while Pope Francis knew she was writing
the book, she had never involved him in any way in the project because
she felt this was not proper, also given that she was touching such
delicate questions as his relationship to the Roman Curia before
becoming Pope.

A few days ago, Kaltenbach, who is a pastor at
the nondenominational Discovery Church went to do his shopping
at US supermarket chain Costco in Simi Valley, California, and saw
something that really did not sit well with him.

He came across a number
of copies of the Bible in the supermarket’s science fiction section.

Pope Francis has embraced the ‘hermeneutic of reform’ that Pope
Benedict XVI proposed as the key to interpreting the teachings of
Vatican II.

In a letter dated November 19 and released November 23, the Pope
appointed Cardinal Walter Brandmüller as his special envoy to the
December celebration of the 450th anniversary of the conclusion of the
Council of Trent (1545-63), the nineteenth of the Church’s 21 ecumenical
councils.

Cardinal Brandmüller, 84, is the president emeritus of the Pontifical Committee for Historical Sciences.

“It is appropriate that the Church recall with a more prompt and
attentive zeal the very fruitful doctrine that came to pass from that
Council held in the Tyrolean region,” Pope Francis said in his
Latin-language letter, as translated in a literal (if stilted) manner.

“Indeed, not without reason has the Church already for a long time
directed such concern to that Council’s decrees and counsels that ought
to be commemorated and observed, since, when very grave matters and
questions appeared at that time, the Council Fathers applied all
diligence, that the Catholic faith might appear distinctly and be better
perceived.”

“Indeed, with the Holy Spirit inspiring and prompting, it concerned them
chiefly that the sacred deposit of Christian doctrine not only be
guarded but also shine forth more clearly, that the salvific work of the
Lord be spread through the whole world and that the Gospel be extended
to all the earth,” Pope Francis added.

“Heeding indeed the same Spirit, Holy Church of this age even now
revives and reflects upon the most glorious Tridentine doctrine,” he
continued. “As a matter of fact, the ‘hermeneutic of reform,’ which Our
Predecessor Benedict XVI set forth in the year 2005 in the presence of
the Roman Curia, relates not less to the Tridentine than to the Vatican
Council.”

Quoting Pope Benedict’s 2005 address, Pope Francis added, “In fact, this
manner of interpreting places under a brighter light one evident
property of the Church that the Lord Himself bestows on her: ‘she is
clearly one ‘subject’ which, with the hastening ages, grows and is
increased; nevertheless, she always remains the same. And so she is the
one subject of the sojourning People of God.’”

Pope Francis’s letter on the Council of Trent follows a letter, dated
October 7 and released November 12, in which he said that “the best
hermeneutics of the Second Vatican Council” has been done by Archbishop
Agostino Marchetto.

“You have manifested this love [for the Church] in many ways, including
correcting an error or imprecision on my part – for which I thank you
from my heart –but above all it is manifest in all its purity in studies
done on the Second Vatican Council,” Pope Francis added in that letter.

In its description of Archbishop Marchetto’s The Second Vatican Ecumenical Council: A Counterpoint for the History of the Council, published in English in 2010, the University of Chicago Press states:

This important study by Archbishop Agostino Marchetto
makes a significant contribution to the debate that surrounds the
interpretation of the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council. Archbishop
Marchetto critiques the Bologna School, which, he suggests, presents the
Council as a kind of “Copernican revolution,” a transformation to
“another Catholicism.” Instead Marchetto invites readers to reconsider
the Council directly, through its official documents, commentaries, and
histories.

In a recent essay published in L’Osservatore Romano, Cardinal
Kurt Koch, the president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting
Christian Unity, wrote that the interpretation of the Council offered by
Archbishop Agostino Marchetto is more relevant than ever.

Archbishop
Marchetto, wrote Cardinal Koch, has “taken up and deepened the
hermeneutic of reform supported by Pope Benedict XVI.”

Birmingham, which was once infamously accused of trying to replace
Christmas with a non-religious “Winterval”, is to drop a Nativity trail
that has been staged in the city’s art gallery for the past eight
years.

Billed as illustrating the Christmas story through the eyes of some
of the world’s greatest artists, the trail used to run from the end of
November until Christmas Eve.

It covered 10 paintings in seven of its galleries, including the largest watercolour in the world, The Star of Bethlehem,
painted between 1887 and 1891, by Sir Edward Burne-Jones, a triptych
from the early sixteenth century by Adriaen Isenbrandt and The Rest on the Flight into Egypt, painted around 1620 by Orazio Gentileschi.

The trail was supported by Christian leaders in the city, and last
year’s formal opening was attended by civil and faith leaders.

The
Archbishop of Birmingham, Bernard Longley, told them the trail and the
traditional nativity scene in the square outside the gallery was “a
little sign of what it means to believe in Jesus in the market place”.

Archbishop Longley emphasised that the leaders of other faiths in
Birmingham all supported and respected the Nativity trail and the
Christmas crib, as Christians of various traditions respected the faiths
and festivals of others.

A spokeswoman for the independent trust that last year took control
of the art gallery and museums from Birmingham City Council blamed a
lack of funding for the decision to halt what had been a very popular
event.

The spokeswoman said: “We are not holding the nativity trail at
Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery this year, as we are currently
reviewing all programming across Birmingham Museums sites in light of
changing resources.”

The Court of Appeal has upheld a ban on an advert which asked
Christians to report experiences of marginalisation in the workplace.

Premier Christian Radio, via its two companies, challenged a 2011
decision by the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, to ban
the advert after the Radio Advertising Clearance Centre claimed it had a
political objective.

The original advert – which was published in The Daily Telegraph lastWednesday
– asked for Christians to share their experience of marginalisation in
the workplace so that the magazine arm of Premier could compile accurate
data on the matter.

The two main candidates in the Paris mayoral election
next March have pledged to step up repair work on the capital's historic
churches after architectural associations sounded the alarm at the
state of disrepair of some well-known houses of prayer.

The city owns 85 Catholic and nine Protestant churches
as well as two synagogues - all taken over in 1905 at the separation of
Church and state - and it is responsible for their upkeep.

The US-based
World Monuments Fund recently placed two Paris churches on its global
list of endangered monuments. Local associations published a list of the
10 most rundown churches.

When city councillors from the conservative opposition
brought up the issue, the city’s Socialist administration said it had
spent 11 million euros per year on church repairs since 2001 (when the
current mayor Bartrand Delanoe was first elected), more, they said, than
the previous conservative administration (of Jean Tiberi).

Socialist mayoral candidate Anne Hidalgo promised to
boost city spending on church upkeep if she wins the elections scheduled
for next March, while conservative candidate Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet
said she would also seek private funds to help expand the maintenance
programme.

More
Christians risk being persecuted for their faith in the 21st Century
than in the early history of the Church Pope Francis has said.

His stark warning comes as the highest-ranking Muslim in the British
government called on European governments to do more to protect besieged
Christian minorities across the world, particularly in the Holy Land
where they are now seen as ‘outsiders’.

Pope Francis appealed to believers in the West to show solidarity
with the many Christians undergoing persecution throughout the world,
praising their courage and testimony.

He urged prayers for “our many Christian brothers and sisters who suffer persecution because of their faith.

“There are so many of them. Maybe, many more than in the early centuries,” he said.

Meanwhile, Baroness Sayeeda Warsi, Britain’s minister for faith and
the first Muslim member of a British cabinet, said religious freedom is a
proxy for human rights and must not be an “add-on” to foreign policy.

“A mass exodus is taking place, on a biblical scale,” she said in a speech at Georgetown University.

“In some places, there is a real danger that Christianity will become extinct.”

Baroness Warsi said Christian minorities in war-torn regions of
Egypt, Iraq, Syria and elsewhere are threatened by Muslim majorities in
the very places that gave rise to Christianity.

“What concerns me is that these communities…are now being seen as outsiders”.

She warned that too often “the local Christian community is fair
game, and somehow collective punishment can be meted out against these
communities for what they see as the perceived actions of their
co-religionists” abroad.

A
newly established confraternity for Irish clergy hopes to support
clerics in their lives and ministry, the group’s chairman has said.

Established during a meeting of priests in Knock, Co. Mayo in late
October, the Confraternity of Catholic Clergy is based on successful
bodies already working for the wellbeing of priests in Australia, the
United States, and Britain.

Well received

Speaking to The Irish Catholic, group chairman Fr Gerard Deighan said
the formulation of the confraternity had been well received by priests
from across Ireland who very often work alone in their respective
parishes.

“I myself feel the need to meet other priests for prayer and for ongoing faith formation,” Fr Deighan said.

He went on to explain that the Confraternity of Catholic Clergy aims to offer this “mutual support and encouragement”.

The confraternity, he added, hopes to further assist clergy through conferences and lectures locally and nationally.

Pointing out that the group utilises the term ‘clergy’ in its name,
Fr Deighan insisted the confraternity is open to deacons and bishops as
well as priests.

Any clergy interested in the work of the Confraternity of Catholic Clergy can email the group at ccceire@gmail.com

Philomena,
starring Judy Dench is currently playing in cinemas and has been
getting plenty of play on RTÉ’s Liveline.

It is the tale of how a mother
was separated from her son when her son was still very young and the
son was raised by adoptive parents.

It is the tale of how both mother and son went looking for one
another and eventually succeeded. It is a tale of how important the
natural ties are to us.

We want to know who we are and where we come
from and a big part of this is knowing all about our natural ties.

It’s what explains the appeal of programmes like Who Do You Think You
Are? and also the appeal of The Gathering which brought together
extended families who could tell who their first, second, third and
fourth cousins were because they could draw their family trees.

Circumstance

It is one thing to have the tie to your natural family cut by
circumstance.

Maybe you weren’t in a position to raise your child and
had to give the child up for adoption.

Adoption is a good and necessary
institution, but adopted children who grow up in loving, caring families
still often go looking for their natural parents because they want to
see who they look like, act like and where they are from.

Natural tie

But its another thing entirely when the natural tie is cut
deliberately without any thought at all for the rights of the child.

However, it appears this is what Justice Minister Alan Shatter, and the
Government generally, are planning to do via a new law set to be
published next month.

The law, to be called the Children and Family Relationships Act looks
set to be the most far-reaching attack on the natural rights of
children this country has seen in a very long time.

Minister Shatter’s
planned reform of Irish family law is ultra-radical. It will permit the
deliberate creation of motherless or fatherless children, and the
deliberate cutting of the natural ties between children and their
parents.

It will allow cohabiting heterosexual couples and same-sex couples to
have children via egg donors and sperm donors and surrogate mothers
with the full approval and blessing of the State. It is not clear yet
whether it will give single men and single women the same rights.

A child who is brought into the world by a single man, a single woman
or a same-sex couple will by definition lack the care of either a
mother or a father.

This should go without saying.

A single man can be a father to a
child, but not a mother.

A lesbian couple cannot give a child a father,
nor a homosexual couple a mother.

These children will deliberately lack
the love of either a mother or a father and to that extent will be
motherless or fatherless.

The State will give this its full support.

IVF

The vast majority of couples who use IVF use their own egg and sperm,
that is the child they will have will be genetically and biologically
their own.

But when a same-sex couple wish to have a child via IVF, they must
use someone else’s egg or someone else’s sperm. That is, the child will
be the biological child of only one member of the couple.

Either the
mother (that is, the egg donor) or the father (that is, the sperm donor)
will be missing.

That is to say, the natural tie to either the mother or the father will be cut deliberately, not through circumstance.

What are we going to say to these children in years to come when they
appear on radio or television and demand to know why society allowed
the tie to at least one of their natural parents to cut?

What are we going to say when they ask why did we let them be
deliberately deprived of either a mother’s love or a father’s love?

Do we think it’s going to cut any ice if we say we did it out of a
desire to be ‘modern’ or ‘tolerant’, or that we were trying to destroy
the last remains of old, traditional Ireland?

At least in the case of adopted children we can tell them that we
didn’t cut the natural tie, that circumstance did that.

But in the case
of children produced via egg or sperm donors we will have no such
excuse.

We will have authorised and approved the deliberate cutting of
the natural tie.

Angry

As it is, there are already thousands of children of egg and sperm
donors grown into adulthood who are looking for their natural parents
and are extremely angry that they will never know them.

What will Alan Shatter and Enda Kenny and Eamon Gilmore say to these
people in the future?

They will have long passed from the scene by then
and so won’t have to answer for what they are about to do.

But a future generation of politicians will have to explain what
happened.

They will have to explain the kind of Ireland that permitted
the deliberate creation of motherless or fatherless children.

They will
have to explain how we ever justified the deliberate sundering of the
natural ties.

And Ireland of the future will look back on Ireland of the present
and wonder why it didn’t defend the rights of children when those rights
came under such strong and far-reaching attack by the Government of
Enda Kenny and Eamon Gilmore.

"We are going to receive him, and we are very open and very ready to
re-establish dialogue," Azab told CNS in his Cairo office in
mid-November.

Greiche, reached by telephone, confirmed he had recently paid a visit
to Al-Azhar, considered the world's highest authority on Sunni Islam,
but declined to give further details.

However, a highly placed Catholic official in Cairo, speaking on
condition of anonymity, confirmed to CNS that Comboni Fr. Miguel Ayuso
Guixot, secretary of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue,
would be in Egypt in December "to meet the imam and see if he will go
back to the dialogue."

Cordial ties between Al-Azhar and the Vatican started to fray in
2006, after Pope Benedict gave a speech in Regensburg, Germany, which
Al-Azhar officials and millions of Muslims said linked Islam to
violence.

At the time, Al-Azhar asked for clarification and a retraction, but
the Vatican and many Catholic officials responded that Pope Benedict had
been citing a 14th-century Byzantine text, that his words were taken
out of context and that they had been misunderstood.

"The straw that broke the camel's back," Azab said, was Pope
Benedict's statement five years later about anti-Christian violence in
Egypt and the need to protect religious minorities there following a
Christmas Eve bombing of a Coptic Orthodox Church in the Egyptian
seaport city of Alexandria.

He said Al-Azhar considered the remarks biased at a time when many of
the Middle East's people, Muslims and Christians alike, were suffering
due to war and other hardships.

"We responded that we expected from His Holiness solidarity with all
the people of the Orient who are living in a difficult period,"
especially the Palestinians whose situation, Azab said, was "the heart
and source of the violence" in the region.

"So we said, 'Since dialogue is not advancing, we are suspending it,
and when we find more fertile ground for dialogue, we will continue,' "
Azab said.

Almost immediately after Pope Francis' election in March, Al-Azhar
expressed hope for "reassuring and productive signs so that dialogue can
resume" with the Vatican, Azab said, adding that a week later the grand
imam had also sent a letter of congratulations to the new pontiff.

In return, the grand imam received a letter of thanks from the
president of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue,
Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, which al-Azhar rejected, Azab said.

"We said, 'No, it is the pope who counts for us,' and (the Vatican)
responded 'No, the pope doesn't usually do this,' so we said 'Please
make an exception because there is only one grand imam and one Al-Azhar
in the world,' " Azab said.

"A bit later ... it was magnificent. We got a letter signed by the
new pope," Azab said. "His Holiness said, 'I put a lot of importance on
working together to realize a good understanding among our people,' "
Azab quoted Pope Francis' letter as saying.

Azab said despite the suspension of talks with the Vatican, Al-Azhar
had "never stopped dialoging" with local and international churches and
their members.

He said under the auspices of Al-Azhar, Egyptian education experts,
including some trained in the United States, were now plying through all
of Egypt's primary- and secondary-school textbooks to locate and
"rectify ... anything that could incite hatred."

He said another
Al-Azhar initiative was engaged in gathering sheiks and priests around
the country at two- and three-day retreats to learn more about each
other's communities and promote understanding.

A wave of violence following the Egyptian army's July 3 removal of
Islamist President Mohammed Morsi led to the looting and destruction of
at least 40 churches around the predominantly Muslim country.

Azab
blamed the violence, which also included attacks on government buildings
and police, on "fanatics," who did not understand the true nature of
Islam, or who were using Islam "as a tool."

"Things are advancing very well here inside Egypt, despite what you
hear of the violence (and) despite the angle taken by some Western media
and channels," he added.

Al-Azhar fully supported the military's takeover because it had come
at the behest of "34 million Egyptians," and had prevented "civil war,"
Azab said.

"For us, it was not a coup d'etat ... it was a true revolution of the people, supported by the army to maintain peace," he said.

He said the 2011 revolution that ended the decades-long rule of
former President Hosni Mubarak had been a call for social as well as
political change, and that Al-Azhar had since come up with a document
emphasizing that it did not support theocratic or autocratic forms of
leadership.

The document outlined four basic principles it said any new
Egyptian government must ensure: freedom of belief, freedom of opinion,
freedom of scientific research, and freedom of creativity.

Thanks to collaboration between Google Street View and the Vatican,
Rome's catacombs are now accessible to anyone with an Internet
connection.

However, the move has created controversy for what some say
the catacombs hold.

Google Street View on Tuesday unveiled a "see-inside" option to
explore nearly the entire 8-mile complex of catacombs below Rome,
including the art-filled Catacombs of Priscilla, according to Catholic News Service.

Google has started to create virtual self-guided tours of famous
locations, like the Eiffel Tower and the Great Barrier Reef, using
special 360-degree cameras that people wear like a backpack.

"If you can find catacombs, if you can find frescos, if you can find
museums online, then you will be willing to know more," Georgia Albetino
of Google's Italian public policy team told Catholic News Agency on Tuesday.

A group of Catholics say people will certainly know more after taking
the Google catacomb tour: They say the catacombs hold evidence of
ancient women priests.

"We are delighted that the Vatican has restored these frescoes of
women priests celebrating Eucharist in the Catacomb of St. Priscilla's
in Rome," Bridget Mary Meehan, a bishop ordained through the Association
of Roman Catholic Women Priests, wrote in a blog post Wednesday.

The frescoes in the Catacombs of Priscilla were recently restored, so
the Google Street View images reveal paintings that look fresh and
richly colored, even though they date back to the first few centuries.

Moving virtually through the Catacombs of Priscilla's winding
passageways, one can find not only the oldest known depiction of the
Madonna and child, but also biblical scenes, including Jesus raising
Lazarus from the dead and paintings of Saints Peter and Paul.

Now that anyone can tour the catacombs and see these frescoes via
Google, members of the Association of Roman Catholic Women Priests say
they have let the media know they have written about and believe that
two frescoes in the Catacombs of Priscilla provide evidence of an
ancient tradition of women deacons, priests and even bishops.

Not all accept that assertion.

"This is an elaboration that has no foundation in reality," Barbara Mazzei of the Pontifical Commission on Sacred Archaeology told Reuters.

In the article,
Meehan describes ancient frescoes, including two in the Catacombs of
Priscilla, portraying what she says are women in liturgical roles and
vestments.

The first Catacombs of Priscilla fresco Meehan mentions "depicts a
woman deacon in the center vested in a dalmatic, her arms raised in the
orans position for public worship."

In the same painting, Meehan says there is also "a woman being
ordained a priest by a bishop seated in a chair. She is vested in an
alb, chasuble, and amice, and holding a gospel scroll."

The third woman in the painting "is wearing the same robe as the
bishop on the left and is sitting in the same type of chair," Meehan
wrote.

In her article, Meehan also quotes archeologist and theologian
Dorothy Irvin, who said she found another fresco in the Catacombs of
Priscilla of women "conducting a Eucharistic banquet."

"This is a fairy tale, a legend," Fabrizio Bisconti, superintendent
of religious heritage archeological sites owned by the Vatican, told Reuters. He said any talk of women in liturgical roles was "sensationalist and absolutely not reliable."

The Associated Press, however, wrote Tuesday
that one of the Priscilla frescoes "features a group of women
celebrating a banquet, said to be the banquet of the Eucharist," and the
other "features a woman, dressed in a dalmatic -- a cassock-like robe
-- with her hands up in the position used by priests for public
worship."

Sr. Chris Schenk, founder of FutureChurch, has led pilgrimages to the Priscilla catacombs many times. She told NCR
the Catacombs of Priscilla, compared to other catacombs she has
visited, are woman-centered, a place where ancient women went to pray
and where females are depicted in many frescoes.

Of the three-woman fresco, Schenk said, "You really can't say that
the one woman is being ordained into the priesthood because what the
priesthood meant in the second or first century was not very clear."

"It does appear that the woman is being celebrated, consecrated, blessed for some kind of leadership role," Schenk said.

The fresco of the women at the banquet is labeled by the Catacombs of
Priscilla guidebook as "a banquet of the Holy Eucharist," Schenk said,
whereas Bisconti told AP it was "a funeral banquet."

Schenk said funeral banquets were raucous affairs, and people
depicted in those paintings were falling off their couches in
drunkenness.

Instead, the women at this banquet "are serious-looking people. There
are no toasting messages above them. You can see clearly the goblet, as
well as the fish and the seven bread baskets, referring to the story of
the loaves and fishes, which historically is a eucharistic motif,"
Schenk said.

She also told NCR ancient women were chastised by the church
for leading early eucharistic banquets, so a depiction of one isn't "a
fairy tale" like Bisconti said.

"I think we shouldn't be so critical, even if people are making speculative interpretations," Schenk said. "Everyone has bias."